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thomasmaurer
MicrosoftJoined Feb 04, 2019
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How to host Tech Workshops and Trainings online
I just got asked by one of my blog readers, who is a consultant and trainer, about what tools I use to give online tech workshops and trainings. I thought this would make a good blog post; that’s why I want to share with you how you can provide tech workshops and trainings online. This can obviously also be used in day to day collaboration and meetings. You can read more here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2020/03/how-to-host-tech-training-online/How I Manage and Plan Tasks as a Remote Worker 🤓✔📅
I know being a remote worker and working from home can be a challenge, especially when it comes to managing and planning your tasks and to-dos. Since I started at Microsoft, I became a remote worker working from my home office, and I needed to figure out what the best way for me is to get things done. In this blog, I want to share my experience on how to manage and plan tasks as a remote worker working from home and be more productive. Check out my blog here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2020/04/how-i-manage-and-plan-tasks-as-a-remote-worker/PowerShell Predictive IntelliSense - the best thing since sliced bread ⚡
2020 must have been a busy year because I missed one of the greatest new PowerShell features called Predictive IntelliSense. Back in November 2020, Jason Helmick announced PowerShell PSReadLine 2.1 with Predictive IntelliSense. Read my full post here: PowerShell Predictive IntelliSense - Thomas MaurerHow to learn Microsoft Azure in 2021
I thought, why not take some time to prepare for the cloud computing era and get started with learning Microsoft Azure. In this post, I try to give you a quick look at how you can get started to learn Microsoft Azure in 2021. You can read more here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2020/12/how-to-learn-microsoft-azure-in-2021/AZ-600 Study Guide Microsoft Certified Azure Stack Hub Operator
Last week, the team released an updated version of the Azure Stack Hub exam called AZ-600: Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack Hub (This exam is currently in beta and you can take it with an 80% discount). When you pass the AZ-600 exam you will get the Microsoft Certified Azure Stack Hub Operator Associate certification. As always I try to take the exam early so I started to prepare for this exam, and as always I will share my AZ-600: Configuring and Operating a Hybrid Cloud with Microsoft Azure Stack Hub Exam Study Guide with you. You can find the full exam study guide here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2021/01/az-600-study-guide-microsoft-certified-azure-stack-hub-operator/Learn about Azure Stack HCI on Microsoft Learn!
Last week the general availability of the new Azure Stack HCI, our new hybrid cloud hyper-converged platform was announced. With the release of this new platform, the team also released a new Microsoft Learn learning path called Azure Stack HCI foundations. In this learning path, you will be introduced to the Azure Stack portfolio and describes basic architecture, core capabilities, and primary use cases of its products. You’ll also learn about the differences and similarities between Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack Edge, and Azure. If you want to get an overview of the Azure Stack portfolio or the new Azure Stack HCI 20H2 version, check out my blog posts. The new Azure Stack HCI foundations learning path on Microsoft Learn currently has 4 modules: Introduction to Azure Stack This module introduces you to the Azure Stack portfolio and describes basic architecture, core capabilities, and primary use cases of its products. You’ll also learn about the differences and similarities between Azure Stack HCI, Azure Stack Hub, Azure Stack Edge, and Azure. You can check out the module here. Introduction to Azure Stack HCI core technologies This module introduces Azure Stack HCI technologies. You’ll learn about the core Azure Stack HCI technologies, including Hyper-V, Windows Server software-defined storage, and Windows Server software-defined networking. You can check out the module here. Plan and deploy Azure Stack HCI This module introduces you to planing for and deploying Azure Stack HCI. Content includes identifying suitable workloads, determining the optimal configuration to host these workloads, stepping through the deployment process, validating post-deployment operational status, and evaluating Azure integration options. You can check out the module here. Integrate Azure Arc and Azure Stack HCI In this module, you will learn the fundamentals of Azure Arc and how is it used to bring new capabilities to the management and monitoring of your Azure Stack HCI clusters at scale. You can check out the module here. You can read the full blog post here.Video Recording: Azure Architecture Best Practices
The video recording from the free online event where I was presenting together with Microsoft Cloud Solution Architect, Dominik Zemp, about Azure Architecture Best Practices is now available. In this session, you will learn about proven guidance that’s designed to help you, architect, create and implement the business and technology strategies necessary for your organization to succeed in the cloud. It provides best practices, documentation, and tools that cloud architects, IT professionals, and business decision-makers need to successfully achieve their short- and long-term objectives. We will be focusing on topics like the Cloud Adoption Framework and the new Enterprise-Scale landing zone architecture. Azure Architecture Best Practices Virtual Event Agenda: Introduction Why Azure Architecture? Introduction to the Cloud Adoption Framework What is Enterprise-Scale? Build landing zones with Enterprise-Scale Critical design areas Deployment using AzOps Demo Build on top of Enterprise-Scale – Well-Architected Framework for workloads and apps Q&A
Azure Arc enabled SQL Server Preview is now available
This week they had another news to share, and it is the private preview of Azure Arc enabled SQL Server. With Azure Arc enabled SQL Server, you can use the Azure Portal to register and track the inventory of your SQL Server instances across on-premises, edge sites, and multi-cloud in a single view. You can also take advantage of Azure security services, such as Azure Security Center and Azure Sentinel. You can read more here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2020/07/azure-arc-enabled-sql-server-preview-is-now-available/Re: How I Manage and Plan Tasks as a Remote Worker 🤓✔📅
Thanks Reza Yes, these things can be challenging, I think the more I let myself to make mistakes in planning and correct them, the more comfortable I feel, and I get better results. If I do my planning too precise I usually end up in chaos and stress myself out 🙂Connect Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine to Azure VPN
A couple of days ago I got a Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine, which is an all-in-one device with an access point, 4-port switch, and a security gateway. After the basic setup, I wanted to connect my Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine USG to an Azure VPN Gateway (Azure Virtual Gateway), using Site-to-Site VPN. Read the full blog here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2020/03/connect-ubiquiti-unifi-dream-machine-to-azure-vpn/How to Learn Microsoft Azure in 2020
How to Learn Microsoft Azure in 2020 :party_popper:☁🎓 The year 2019 is almost over, and usually, we take the time to look back at the year and also to find some New Year’s resolutions for the new year. Why not take all that energy and prepare for the cloud computing era and advance your career by learning Microsoft Azure. In this post, I try to give you a quick look at how you can get started to learn Microsoft Azure in 2020. You can read more here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/12/how-to-learn-microsoft-azure-in-2020/How to Sync Azure Blob Storage with AzCopy
A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about how you can sync files to Azure Blob storage using AzCopy. Today I got an exciting update from one of my issues for AzCopy on GitHub, AzCopy version 10.3 now supports the synchronization feature from Azure Blob storage to Azure Blob storage. This means you can now sync Azure Blob to Azure Blob using AzCopy. You can read more here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/11/how-to-sync-azure-blob-storage-with-azcopy/Deploy and Install Windows Admin Center in an Azure VM
The great thing about Windows Admin Center (WAC) you manage every Windows Server doesn't matter where it is running. You can manage Windows Servers on-prem, in Azure or running at other cloud providers. Now if you want to use Windows Admin Center to manage your virtual machines running in Azure, you can use either an on-prem WAC installation and connecting it using a public IP address or a VPN connection, or you can deploy and install Windows Admin Center in Azure. This blog post will show you how you can deploy and install Windows Admin Center in an Azure virtual machine (VM). Check out my blog post to read more: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/10/deploy-and-install-windows-admin-center-in-an-azure-vm/How to Install WSL 2 on Windows Server
A couple of months ago Microsoft announced the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2), which is a successor of the Windows Subsytem for Linux shipped a couple of years ago. WSL 2 is currently available for Windows Insiders running Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18917 or higher and with the Docker Tech Preview, you can now even run Docker Linux Container directly on WSL 2. With the latest Windows Server Insider Preview build 18945, you are also able to run WSL 2 on Windows Server. In this blog post, I am going to show you how you can install the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2) on Windows Server. The Windows Subsystem for Linux was already available in earlier versions of Windows Server; however, WSL 2 brings a lot of new advantages. Read more here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/08/how-to-install-wsl-2-on-windows-server/How to enable Ping (ICMP echo) on an Azure VM
This is just a very quick blog post because I got the question from a couple of people. In this blog post want to show you how you can enable ping (ICMP) on a public IP address of an Azure virtual machine (VM). First, just let me say that assigning a public IP address to a virtual machine can be a security risk. So if you do that, make sure you know what you are doing. If you need admin access to virtual machines only for a specific time, there are services like Azure Just-in-Time VM Access (JIT) and Azure Bastion you should have a look at. Now back to the topic, Azure by default denies and blocks all public inbound traffic to an Azure virtual machine, and also includes ICMP traffic. This is a good thing since it improves security by reducing the attack surface. Read more here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/09/how-to-enable-ping-icmp-echo-on-an-azure-vm/Tips how to Prepare and Pass a Microsoft Azure Exam
There are many good reasons to become Microsoft Azure Certified and take the Microsoft Azure exams. If you are reading this blog post, you might already have decided that you want to take a Microsoft Azure exam and get a certification. Since I passed a couple of the Azure exams, I would like to share how I prepared for these exams and passed. Hopefully, this will make it easier for you to pass them as well. Check out my blog here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/09/how-to-prepare-and-pass-a-microsoft-azure-exam/Assess and Migrate Hyper-V VMs to Azure using Azure Migrate
Today, the Azure Migrate team launched an update to the Azure Migrate service, which can help you discover, assess, and migrate applications, infrastructure, and data from your on-prem environment to Microsoft Azure. This is excellent timing since we all know that Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are soon out of support and you get free extended security updates if you migrate your VMs to Azure. With Azure Migrate, you can now centrally track the progress of your migration journey across multiple thrid-party and Microsoft tools. In this post, I am going to show you how you can step-by-step assess and migrate Hyper-V VMs to Azure using Azure Migrate. Check it out here: https://www.thomasmaurer.ch/2019/07/assess-and-migrate-hyper-v-vms-with-azure-migrate/
